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Banned Surrey Six gang trial documents land on Internet

Surrey Six and UN murder cases among those affected

Jamie Bacon in prison in 2010.

Photograph by: Special to the Vancouver Sun
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METRO VANCOUVER -- Crown documents disclosed in two major gang cases have been posted on the Internet by someone trying to discredit the Bacon brothers, The Vancouver Sun has learned.

Police are now investigating the release of the documents after being alerted to their existence by The Sun.

At least some of the documents are covered by publication bans in both the Surrey Six murder case and the United Nations murder conspiracy prosecution.

Crown counsel Ralph Keefer, the lead prosecutor on the UN case, said he only learned of the website when contacted by The Sun Thursday.

“And we have asked the police to investigate,” he said.

And RCMP Supt. John Robin, the officer in charge of the Surrey Six murder investigation, said “it’s concerning and we are looking into it.”

The documents contain potential evidence in the high-profile murder cases, meaning they are not supposed to be released publicly until they are introduced during the upcoming jury trials.

The Bacon gangster trio has been linked by police for years to a bloody gang war that played out on Lower Mainland streets.

Youngest brother Jamie is awaiting trial in the 2007 Surrey Six murders. Middle brother Jarrod is in jail after a conviction for cocaine trafficking this year. Eldest sibling Jonathan was shot to death in a gang hit in Kelowna on Aug. 14, 2011.

In the UN prosecution, seven men with links to the gang are on trial for conspiring to kill the Bacon brothers. The case is now in pre-trial applications at the Vancouver Law Courts, though no trial date has been set.

The Surrey Six murder case has been broken into two trials. Jamie Bacon will be tried on his own in Vancouver Supreme Court, while his co-accused Cody Haevischer, Matt Johnston and Michael Le will go to trial in New Westminster. Both Surrey Six trials are expected to start in early 2013, though no dates are set.

Bacon’s lawyer Kimberly Eldred said Thursday that she was also unaware of the leaked disclosure documents until contacted by the Sun.

Her only comment was that she would “await the outcome” of the police-Crown investigation.

The nine pages posted online bear markings of having been vetted by the Crown, with some personal details of people listed in the documents removed. All three Bacon brothers are mentioned.

The Sun is not identifying the site posting the documents so as not to violate court-ordered publication bans.

Dozens of lawyers and defendants would have access to the disclosure documents in the two high-profile gang cases, as well as in several related, but separate, prosecutions. Anyone receiving disclosure has to sign an undertaking to not release the documents.

Other high-profile murder trials that have taken years to get to court have had similar problems with banned information appearing online or disclosure documents being circulated.

During the Air India terrorism trial, the RCMP investigated several incidents of banned information appearing online, and had to deal with Crown witness statements being circulated in the community before the trial began.

During the Robert Pickton serial murder case, some U.S. news sites posted material that was banned in Canada.